Demi Moore--Member of the Brat Pack & One Time Highest Paid Film Actress

 

Demi Gene Moore (/dəˈmiː/ də-MEE; née Guynes; born November 11, 1962) is an American actress. After making her film debut in 1981, Moore appeared on the soap opera General Hospital (1982–1984) and subsequently gained recognition as a member of the Brat Pack with roles in Blame It on Rio (1984), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), and About Last Night... (1986). She had her breakthrough for her starring role in Ghost (1990), the highest-grossing film of that year. Her performance was praised and earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

She had further box-office success in the early 1990s, with the films A Few Good Men (1992), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Disclosure (1994). In 1996, Moore became the highest-paid actress in film history when she received an unprecedented $12.5 million to star in Striptease. She had starring roles in the films The Scarlet Letter (1995), The Juror (1996) and G.I. Jane (1997), all of which were commercially unsuccessful and contributed to a downturn in her career. Her career has since had a resurgence with voice roles in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002) and supporting roles in such films as Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Bobby (2006), Mr. Brooks (2007), Margin Call (2011), and Rough Night (2017).

In 2019, she released a memoir titled Inside Out, which became a New York Times Best Seller. Moore has been married three times: to the musician Freddy Moore and the actors Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher. She has three daughters with Willis. 

Moore was born November 11, 1962, in Roswell, New Mexico. Her biological father, Air Force airman Charles Foster Harmon Sr., left her then 18-year-old mother, Virginia (née King), after a two-month marriage before Moore was born. Charles came from Lanett, Alabama, and Virginia was born in Richmond, California, but had grown up in Roswell. Moore's maternal grandmother was raised on a farm in Elida, New Mexico. When Moore was three months old, her mother married Dan Guynes, a newspaper advertising salesman who frequently changed jobs; as a result, the family moved many times. In 1967, they had Moore's half-brother Morgan. Moore said in 1991, "My dad is Dan Guynes. He raised me. There is a man who would be considered my biological father who I don't really have a relationship with." Moore has half-siblings from Charlie Harmon's other marriages, but she doesn't keep in touch with them either.

Moore's stepfather Dan Guynes married and divorced Virginia twice. On October 20, 1980, a year after their second divorce from each other, Guynes died by suicide. Her biological father Charlie Harmon died in 1997 from liver cancer in Brazoria, Texas. Moore's mother had a long arrest record which included drunk driving and arson. Moore broke off contact with her in 1989, when Guynes walked away halfway through a rehab stay Moore had financed at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. Virginia Guynes posed nude for the magazine High Society in 1993, where she spoofed Moore's Vanity Fair pregnancy and bodypaint covers and parodied her clay scene from Ghost. Moore and Guynes briefly reconciled shortly before Guynes died of a brain tumor on July 2, 1998.

Moore spent her early childhood in Roswell, and later, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. She suffered from strabismus as a child, which was corrected by two operations; Moore also suffered from kidney dysfunction. Moore learned of her biological father, Harmon, at age 13, when she found her mother and stepfather's marriage certificate and inquired about the circumstances since she "saw my parents were married in February 1963. I was born in '62."

Moore signed with the Elite Modeling Agency, then enrolled in drama classes after being inspired by her next-door neighbor, 17-year-old German actress Nastassja Kinski. In August 1979, at age 16, Moore met musician Freddy Moore who was married and at the time leader of the band Boy, at the Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour. They lived in an apartment in West Hollywood. Moore co-wrote three songs with Freddy Moore and appeared in the music video for their selection "It's Not a Rumor," performed by his band, The Nu Kats. She continues to receive royalty checks from her songwriting work (1980–1981). Moore also sang in the films One Crazy Summer and Bobby.

Moore appeared on the cover of the January 1981 issue of the adult magazine Oui, taken from a photo session in which she had posed nude. In a 1988 interview, Moore claimed she "only posed for the cover of Oui—I was 16; I told them I was 18". Interviewer Alan Carter said, "However, some peekaboo shots did appear inside. And later, nude shots of her turned up in Celebrity Sleuth—photos that she once said 'were for a European fashion magazine'." In 1990, she told another interviewer, "I was 17 years old. I was underage. It was just the cover." Moore made her film debut with a brief role in the 1981 teen drama Choices, directed by Silvio Narizzano. Her second film feature was the 3-D sci-fi horror film Parasite (1982), for which director Charles Band had instructed casting director Johanna Ray to "find me the next Karen Allen." Moore then joined the cast of the ABC soap opera General Hospital, playing the role of an investigative reporter until 1983. During her tenure on the series, she made an uncredited cameo appearance in the 1982 spoof film Young Doctors in Love. Moore's film career took off in 1984 following her appearance in the sex comedy Blame It on Rio. She also portrayed Laura Victor in the comedy film No Small Affair (1984), opposite Jon Cryer.

Moore's commercial breakthrough came in Joel Schumacher's yuppie drama St. Elmo's Fire (1985), which received negative reviews, but was a box office success and brought Moore recognition. Because of her association with that film, Moore was often listed as part of the Brat Pack, a label she felt was "demeaning". Moore progressed to more serious material with About Last Night... (1986), co-starring Rob Lowe, which marked a positive turning point in her career, as Moore noted that, following its release, she began seeing better scripts. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and praised her performance, writing, "There isn't a romantic note she isn't required to play in this movie, and she plays them all flawlessly. Wikipedia [see Wikipedia also for later career]